Maurice Grosse
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Maurice Grosse (6 March 1919 – 14 October 2006) was a British
paranormal Paranormal events are purported phenomena described in popular culture, folk, and other non-scientific bodies of knowledge, whose existence within these contexts is described as being beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. Not ...
investigator. Famous for his involvement in the Enfield Poltergeist case from 1977 to 1979, he has been portrayed in several films and television series, including '' The Enfield Haunting'' (2015) by Timothy Spall and '' The Conjuring 2'' (2016) by
Simon McBurney Simon Montagu McBurney (born 25 August 1957) is an English actor, playwright, and theatre and opera director. He is the founder and artistic director of the Complicité, Théâtre de Complicité, London. He has had roles in the films ''The Manch ...
.


Early life

Grosse was educated at the Regent Street Polytechnic in London. After serving an apprenticeship in commercial art and design, he served in the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
with the
Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...
and was among those evacuated from
Dunkirk Dunkirk ( ; ; ; Picard language, Picard: ''Dunkèke''; ; or ) is a major port city in the Departments of France, department of Nord (French department), Nord in northern France. It lies from the Belgium, Belgian border. It has the third-larg ...
in June 1940. Commissioned in 1941, he became responsible for the guarding and welfare of Italian
prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war for a ...
for the remainder of the war. He married his wife Betty Yasny in 1944 and they had two daughters and a son. After the war he became an inventor, and he filed the first of his many mechanical patents in 1945. His most successful invention was the rotating advertising billboard. In 1961 Grosse founded his own design and engineering consultancy business which became responsible for launching many patents throughout the world.Grosse's obituary in '' Fortean Times''


Psychical investigator

A personal tragedy launched Grosse into psychical research, when his daughter Janet was killed in a motorbike accident in August 1976. Following her death, Grosse reported that members of his family experienced a number of coincidences and psychic happenings, and this led him to join the
Society for Psychical Research The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to condu ...
and The Ghost Club. In September 1977 he investigated an alleged
poltergeist In German folklore and ghostlore, a poltergeist ( or ; ; or ) is a type of ghost or spirit that is responsible for physical disturbances, such as loud noises and objects being moved or destroyed. Most claims or fictional descriptions of polter ...
in a house in Green Street, Enfield,
North London North London is the northern part of London, England, north of the River Thames and the City of London. It extends from Clerkenwell and Finsbury, on the edge of the City of London financial district, to Greater London's boundary with Hertfordshi ...
, that later became known as the Enfield poltergeist. Grosse claimed to have recorded many hours of audio and video evidence of the poltergeist while staying at the house for long periods of time, along with another psychical investigator, Guy Lyon Playfair, who later wrote the book ''This House is Haunted'' (1980). Sceptic Joe Nickell criticised Grosse and Playfair's investigations as "credulous". When professional ventriloquist Ray Alan visited the house and concluded that the girls were faking an allegedly "demonic" voice because they "obviously loved all the attention they got", Grosse was so convinced it was of
supernatural Supernatural phenomena or entities are those beyond the Scientific law, laws of nature. The term is derived from Medieval Latin , from Latin 'above, beyond, outside of' + 'nature'. Although the corollary term "nature" has had multiple meanin ...
origin that he offered £1,000 to anyone who could duplicate the voice by ventriloquism or any other form of trickery. The parapsychologist David Fontana proposed that poltergeists could haunt tape recorders and speculated that a peculiar threading jam experienced by Grosse while playing tape recordings made at the home was due to supernatural forces. However, Tom Flynn, a media expert for the
Committee for Skeptical Inquiry The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), formerly known as the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), is a program within the U.S. non-profit organization Center for Inquiry (CFI), which seeks to " ...
examined Fontana's claims and suggested an entirely naturalistic explanation. According to Joe Nickell, "Occasionally, especially with older tape and under humid conditions, as the tape travels it can adhere to one of the guide posts. When this happens on a deck where both supply and take-up spindles are powered, the tape continues to feed, creating a fold. It was such a loop of tape, Flynn theorizes, that threaded its way amid the works of Grosse's recorder."The Haunted Tape Recorder by Joe Nickell
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Later life

Grosse investigated many other cases, and served as a member of the Society for Psychical Research's Council, as well as being the long-serving chairman of its Spontaneous Cases Committee. In 1995 Grosse was at a vigil in Charlton House when it was claimed that a piece of crockery materialised and shattered. In 2000 he recorded what he claimed were poltergeist knockings on videotape at the home of a family in north London. In addition to ghosts and poltergeists, Grosse also investigated numerous claims of
precognition Precognition (from the Latin 'before', and 'acquiring knowledge') is the purported psychic phenomenon of seeing, or otherwise becoming directly aware of, events in the future. There is no accepted scientific evidence that precognition is a ...
. He also put together an extensive collection of alleged examples of psychic photography. He continued this work right up until the summer of 2006. Grosse appeared posthumously in
Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by Channel Four Television Corporation. It is state-owned enterprise, publicly owned but, unlike the BBC, it receives no public funding and is funded en ...
's documentary '' Interview with a Poltergeist'' which was transmitted on 6 March 2007. He also made an appearance on the Channel 4
mockumentary A mockumentary (a portmanteau of ''mock'' and ''documentary'') is a type of film or television show depicting fictional events, but presented as a Documentary film, documentary. Mockumentaries are often used to analyze or comment on current event ...
'' Da Ali G Show'' in which he was interviewed by
Sacha Baron Cohen Sacha Noam Baron Cohen ( ; born 13 October 1971) is an English comedian, actor and performance artist. Known for his creation and portrayal of the fictional satirical characters Ali G, Borat Sagdiyev, Brüno Gehard, and Admiral General Haf ...
. In 1998 Grosse sued David Baddiel for £10,000 after Baddiel had described a psychic investigator called Maurice Grosse who lives in High Barnet, North London, and runs away with a married woman.


References


External links


Obituary
from the Ghost Club
Obituary
from Fortean Times {{DEFAULTSORT:Grosse, Maurice 1919 births 2006 deaths English Jews Paranormal investigators British parapsychologists Alumni of the Regent Street Polytechnic Royal Artillery soldiers Royal Artillery officers British Army personnel of World War II 20th-century British inventors